Friday evening Hania and I drove down to the University of Miami to hear the Frost Symphony Orchestra play a program of Bartok, Glazunov, Barber, and Brahms. (I had sat next to one of the violinists, a first-year master's student, on a plane back from Philadelphia last summer.) Then yesterday I returned to Miami to hear the Miami Bach Society's presentation, in partnership with the University of Miami Collegium Musicum and the Anglican Chorale, of Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John Passion.
A cellphone rang while Dr. Donald Oglesby, the director, was introducing the work. He took the phone and put it to his ear. "Johann? Hello. We're just about to perform your Passion. Yes, we're passionate about it. What? OK." Then, handing the phone back to the man who had given it to him, he said: "Johann would like you all to turn off your cellphones."
There followed two and a half hours of glorious music and exalted singing.
At the conclusion, Dr. Oglesby was given a present by one of the singers, a man who spoke of his 39 years of service to the University of Miami with such emotion that he almost didn't make it to the end. Dr. Oglesby wiped away a tear himself. Then he took the wrapping paper off the present to reveal a box. He opened the box and found another box. Laughter spread through the church. "Well," said one of the violinists, "we are the Box Society." (A brilliant pun that worked better in spoken than written form.)
